NEWS Internet users in many urban areas around the UK may soon be able to get a broadband connection of eight megabits per second - four times faster than the quickest consumer service being trialled by BT.
UK Online announced this week that it has launched Broadband 8000. This service uses Easynet's unbundled network of local exchanges to provide the 8Mbps connection, as BT doesn't offer such a service at present.
Broadband 8000 will cost £39.99 per month, compared to around £30 per month for a 1Mbps service today.
But there is a catch. Easynet has only unbundled some 230 of the UK's 6,500 local telephone exchanges. Because it has concentrated on major towns and cities, this lets it reach about 4.4 million homes. UK Online's service is currently only available from a "handful" of exchanges, but the company aims to roll it out to all 230 unbundled exchanges by early 2005.
The service will restrict users from regularly downloading more than four gigabytes of data per day, but this limit should still allow a great deal of downloading and surfing.
UK Online also appears to have ambitious plans to move beyond just offering internet access over Easynet's unbundled exchanges. It says it is looking to "add voice, TV and video-on-demand during 2005".
BT Wholesale announced last month that it is testing a 2Mbps ADSL service, which is likely to be available to all UK ISPs in early 2005.
Easynet already offers business broadband speeds of up to 8Mbps. These packages - which include service level agreements, multiple IP addresses and a more favourable contention ratio than UK Online's Broadband 8000 - can cost £200 per month.
Bulldog, another company unbundling the UK local loop, is selling a 4Mbps service in central London and parts of the South-East. It plans to extend its coverage following its takeover by Cable & Wireless this summer.
UK Online has published a list of areas where Broadband 8000 will be available on its website.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Alex P Roe
Finally the UK gets fast connections to the WWW!! We have had 10 megabits here in Italy for about 3 years now - in most major urban areas. Cost: about 70 Euros a month - including all local and national phone calls and a digital TV connection. I wonder how many other countries offer affordable 'real' broadband services like that in Italy. The Italan company behind the operation is called 'Fastweb'. I have no, er' connection to them (apart from the line that is!)
2. anonymous
Oh dear . . . I live in Japan where I get 100Mbps for less than either of the prices mentioned here. Come on UK - wake up!
3. Mark Aggleton
The odd thing is that regular downloads of more than 4Gb a day will be considered excessive. That's less than 2 hours download time.....
4. anonymous
What is the upload speed?
5. royston
try telling this to tiscal.co.uk. jeez they are in the dark ages amongst others.for home users not just business users
6. anonymous
The upload speed on this is 400k, download 8 meg.
The 4 gig in 24 hours is a guide and not a cap so you can go over this but it is not advisable to go too far over too regularly. I believe they are reviewing this at present though.
Ditch the rest get a real connection, can't wait to get this running with online games.
7. anonymous
The upload speed on this is 400k, download 8 meg.
The 4 gig in 24 hours is a guide and not a cap so you can go over this but it is not advisable to go too far over too regularly. I believe they are reviewing this at present though.
Ditch the rest get a real connection, can't wait to get this running with online games.
8. Chris Martin
Sounds expensive to me. In the U.S., I've had a cable broadband connection for a couple of years and get 7Mbps with no limits for $45.00. That's about 23 pounds, right?
I believe that most personal DSL connections are in the 2-3 Mbps range and cost about $35.00.
I'm not bragging, just stating the facts.
P.S. Anyone hiring Americans over there?
9. royston
we are all saying what we have and what we dont have but the point is, why exactly is the uk so slow at rolling out the fast speeds and realistic fat pipes etc? is bt slow? is the government holding things back on purpose? are the public too slow to take up the offer of faster conections? is it lack of cash? is it the technolgy not available ? or is it the telcos not willing to impliment new technology? we are not a 3rd world country so what the hell is stopping us from getting all this fat pipe speed etc etc. its ok talking about it and makeing telcos etc listen but what exactly is stopping it all or holding things up? why doesnt bt just bite the bullet and offer real speed? and why doesnt the present government get off their backsides and show us real performance instead of debateing everything. we know it can be done. i for one am rapidly becomeing a silver surfer and want to see some real speed before the local snail in my back garden sticks a dish on its shell and goes faster than me in the home. we in the uk are becomeing a laughing stock in this area of technology called broadband.WE ARE SLOW! FULL STOP.